Recently, Yahoo launched the Y!Q contest to see who could make the best use of this service though integrating it onto their web site. Well, the contest has officially closed and Yahoo has announced the winners.
2. A regular web search only uses your search term or “query” to find what you’re looking for. Y!Q uses both your query and information on a webpage to determine the “context” of your search. Using this “context,” Y!Q provides exactly the type of information you’re looking for. A traditional search does not utilize context and isn’t a contextual search.
The Y!Q winners were announced by Jeremy Zawodny on the Yahoo Search blog and they were tested on the following criteria:
The following are the winners and brief descriptions of why their submission was rewarded:
Third Place:
Site: Particletree.com
Implementation by Kevin Hale, Chris Campbell, Ryan Campbell
Particletree did a tremendous job with prominence, topping all entrants with heavy visual customization that integrated the look and feel of their Y!Q implementation with the rest of their site. Y!Q links were also included on most of the articles on the site, and in many places within each article, something undoubtedly made simpler by their implementation of “Lazy Linking,” an integration of Y!Q with the TextPattern content management system that they use.
Second Place:
Site: Owensperformance.com
Implementation by Irvin Owens Jr
Owensperformance did a great job with prominence, with Y!Q links being available for all article headlines on the home page, as well as the detailed articles. Relevance was also a strength, with context being set fairly effectively in most cases. The combination of effective prominence, relevance and the nature of the content on the site contributed to strong overall usefulness.
First Place
Site: Geekextreme.com
Implementation by Gil Rutkowski
Geekextreme did a solid job with relevance, perhaps aided by their development of a Y!Q Mambo that integrates Y!Q with the Mambo content management system. The integration provided a simple way to set context for Y!Q and it appears they have taken full advantage of it to their benefit, and to the benefit of visitors to their site. Prominence was aided by a nice visual customization for the overlay. The frequency of fresh content on the site, combined with the solid relevance resulted in great overall usefulness.
Courtesy of the Yahoo Search blog.
In order to see why these sites were chosen, pay them a visit and check out how they implemented Y!Q. Is this a “service” you would consider offering on your site?
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for murdok. Visit murdok for the latest search news.
